Awesome swap!

I got my swap partners package today! It was like Christmas. I almost fainted from all the cuteness. My partner Beth made me the nicest apron and matching oven mitt. I love the colors and patterns. She also made me a little bag/pin cushion that goes in my craft room. The flower part is the pin cushion with the rubber skid stuff under it so it can sit on the edge of my table and the bag can hang over the side. I love it! I also got a handmade card, some bath and body lotion and spray and some little treats. This was by far the best swap I have ever participated in!

Tip Junkie's Trade Secrets Swap

I participated in Tip Junkie's Trade Secrets Swap. You were supposed to make 3 things that are your 'trade secrets'. I don't think I really have anything that is a trade secret. But I have things that I love to make so I went with that. My swap partner lives in the next city so that was great as it saved me shipping costs :) I loved doing this swap. I love making things for others and it helped that I had a deadline. Your swap items were supposed to be $25 excluding shipping. I only had to buy 3 things which is amazing for me. Almost everything was made from items that I had in my stash. That was really nice. First up, I made her a clothespin doll. I am in love with these things and I need to make a hundred more. So my swap partner's favorite color is blue and she loves to quilt. So I took those and Incorporated them with the doll. Next, I made her a wreath. My friend Bente made one for our family and I love it. It's my favorite Christmas decoration. I really enjoyed making this wreath. It combines two of my favorite things; stamping and paper crafting. And finally, I bought my partner my favorite cookie decorating book and I made her some cookies.

Fun Fall Treats

I love to make cute stuff. So it should come as no shock that food is no exception. We recently had our first cooking club meeting since the summer break. I loved making these cupcakes. They were super easy and so cute. You can find the directions here. She also has some directions for apple cupcakes, turkey cupcakes and Indian corn cupcakes. So cute! The pumpkins were also cheesy easy. It was my first time making rice krispie treats in the microwave. The green stem and vines are fruit roll-up. You can find the directions here.

My favorite thing!

I'm in love! I recently discovered this tutorial for clothespin dolls and I can't stop making them (thanks Going Sew Crazy, and I mean that in a good way :) . I must perfect them and I won't stop until I do. I've made a few so far. My first was just hideous. I can't even show you, she's that bad, I'm so embarrassed. My next one was better, my third a little better. I had to order some flesh colored pipe cleaner since I searched high and low and couldn't find any. So my second has lollipop stick arms and my third has dark beige-ish pipe cleaner arms. Her skin tone is not quite what I was looking for. But I'm hoping that one woman's trash is another woman's treasure (not that I would ever throw her away). I plan on using the pink doll as my next giveaway on my party blog: http://www.partiesbyhardie/. I usually do a giveaway around the first of each month and since she's meant to be a birthday doll, I figured she would work. I'll have more to share as soon as my pipe cleaners come : ) There will be more, many many more.

A question for my readers

I am trying to start a craft club with my spouses' group. I have been searching online for ideas but I'm not finding much. So I thought I would ask you! My plan is to have it once a month in the evening when the hubby's can watch the kiddies. There would be a hostess who would hopefully provide some snacks and drinks and of course, their home. Now, here's where things get tricky. I read one idea about everyone paying the hostess and the hostess gathering all the necessary materials. My other idea was that you send out the materials list ahead of time and everyone gets their own stuff and then you pool the big resources, like sewing machines or scissors. Which do you think would work out better? If anyone has any ideas to share I would love to hear them!

Cupcake burgers and cookie fries, oh my!

Does it really get any tastier than cupcake burgers and cookie fries? If you haven't been to Bakerella's blog before you need to go. Run, don't walk and check out her post on these adorable treats. Her photography is amazing and her baking skills are outta this world. And she offers a download to make the little trays, fry wrappers and the tissue paper. That's right baby, I made the entire ensemble that you see thanks to Bakerella!

Hidy-ho neighbor!

I needed to make a card for our neighbors to thank them for watching over our house while we were on vacation. They even turned on our sprinklers since our yard was drying up and dying. Ya gotta love neighbors like that. So we got them a gift card and I whipped up a little card (fits in an A2 envelope). I thought I would share it with anyone else who might want a quick and simple card. Give it to your neighbor who just moved in or just for the heck of it :o)

Click on the house to download!

Party Giveaway!

I'm doing a giveaway! Check out Design Dazzle and leave a comment on her blog about the partyware you would like to win. You can win a $25 gift certificate and free shipping for anything in my shop! The gift certificate is good for 1 year. The contest closes May 28th at midnight (PST). Design Dazzle has some wonderful ideas for kids rooms, parties, decorating, etc. It's definitely one of my favorites for future party inspirtation!

Jackson-1 month

I just wanted to quickly share a photo of my little guy in his one month onesie.

There's a party goin on round here...

I've been MIA for quite a while, but for good reason. I am starting a little business venture. I have been working for the last couple of weeks on party ware. I have been creating some themes for kids parties and baby showers that I plan to sell on etsy. I'm really excited about this project. It's pretty much all I think about now. I have a million ideas but for now I'm working on my first four themes and when those are complete, then I will open my etsy shop and see how it goes. If noone is interested, at least I enjoyed making the stuff. For now, I will leave you with a little sneak peak, see if you can figure out what two of the the themes might be!

A simple onesie

I've seen several ideas on the internet for onesies that mark a baby's monthly milestones. I really liked how simple this one was. The idea came from this blog. I made a four inch circle in Word, filled it in with blue and typed in white. Then I printed it out on iron-on transfer paper and ironed it on the onesie. Cheesy-easy! I plan on doing this for each month until he's a year old.

Digi-scrapped birth announcement

Finally! After three weeks, I finally got my son's birth announcements done. The hubby is going to be picking up my prints today so I can make sure that they look OK. I really wanted to make my son's birth announcements this time since I knew I could do it cheaper than what I could buy them for online. I used Andrea Victoria's Mod Bebe Boy papers. I really wanted a picture where he was awake but unfortunately my camera was having issues with the shutter so it has been sent off to Nikon for repair. This was the best picture I had available (sniff, sniff).

Easter goodies

I haven't officially started any Easter projects, please, that would require me to be on the ball. But I thought I would share the Easter projects from years past. There's also the post on the peeps jars and treat bags here.

This is a carrot box that I made for stamp club and filled with candy.

This was a springy card a friend and I made forever ago.

I am alive!

Sorry for the looong delay. I'm still alive. I had my son 3 weeks ago and we've had my MIL and mom visiting. Now everyone is gone and it's life as usual. I'm still trying to get the hang of managing three kids with little sleep. I really hope to get some crafting done this week. I need to make a 1 month onesie for my son, I've registered for Jessica Sprague's photo editing class online and I bought some felt food patterns, magnetic printer sheets and sticker paper for the printer. I've got lots of things I want to make, now I just have to find the time to do it. Oh and I also had my one year blogiversary so I really want to do a giveaway, now I just have to figure out what to give.

An Owl Birthday Card

I made this card for a friend's daughter who is turning five (look away Bente! :o) I cut the owl with my cricut and the lettering inside was also cut using my cricut and the SCAL software. The font is Forte. The red patterned paper is from Nancy Kubo's Sugar Coated digital paper kit.

Dog-gone cute cookies

I saw these dog cookies in last month's Parents magazine. They called them pooch pops since they baked them on sticks. They suggested using the sugar cookie dough that you can buy at the store and mixing some of it with cocoa to get the brown ears. I just made my own sugar cookie dough and mixed some of it in my mixer with some brown Wilton food gel. They were really easy. You use a heart shaped cookie cutter and cut out a heart from the brown cookie dough and the original cookie dough. Place the plain heart on the cookie sheet, cut the brown heart in half and place on each side of the plain heart. Press some mini chocolate chips into the plain heart and bake. The ears will bake into the head part. Then use some white icing to glue on some eyes and a nose using M&M's.

*On a side note, someone had asked me where to find the original orange candy corn this time of year. Our Super Target has the Jelly Belly brand of candy corn in their bulk candy section.

More cuteness

OK, last ones I promise. I just bought Nancy Kubo's new XOXO graphics and she had the cutest dinosaur and elephant that I just had to try. Sadly, elephants tail was a bit too skimpy to cut so he is tailless. I'm tellin you, I'm in love with my cricut again. There is now a way to combine the best of two worlds, digital scrapbooking and cricut.

Robot Valentine

Here's a robot I cut with my cricut. He came from Mindy Terasawa's Itty Bitty Robots graphic stickers. I didn't include all of his parts because he had a ton of little pieces.

A cricut honeymoon

My cricut and I are on our 3rd or 4th honeymoon. I go through phases with my crafting. I get on a roll with a particular type of craft and then get bored with it and move on to another craft. So my poor cricut had been collecting dust. Well, I have been in love with my digital kits and was working on some valentines day projects and started wishing there was a way my cricut could cut out some of the images and save my poor hands from cutting them with scissors. I ended up finding a great tutorial for converting PNG files (digital images are usually saved this way) to SVG files so that I could import them into SCAL and cut them with my cricut. So since I have been working on some owl valentines, I decided to cut out Nancy Kubo's owl from her Little Owl digital kit. I was ecstatic when it worked! I have so many digi kits and now my possibilities are endless! I plan on cutting out a robot later today so I'll share pictures of him when I'm done.

This guy is about 5" tall.

This is Nancy's digital sticker kit. Can you just imagine all the cute things I can cut now?!

Nuts for you valentine!

This is the valentine treat that I made last year for my sons' classes at Mom's Day Out. I stamped them using Papertrey's Punny Valentine stamp set. You can see Nichole's original directions here. This year I plan on doing robots for some little boys and owls for some little girls. Now I just have to get my booty in gear and get them done so I can get them in the mail on time :o)

Since these were for kids I opted not to do nuts with all the peanut allergy issues, plus I don't know that kids go nuts over nuts (he, he,he). Instead I used the marshmallowy circus peanuts.